• Account Details of Local Currencies Account for receiving USD payment

hi,

my partner and i are trying to receive a payment from a US based client in dollars - but their payments aren't going through - i’ve opened a local currency account but their bank apparently flagged the transaction as the account # is not located within the IBAN # (?)
After I sent them a screenshot of the banking details and explained from my gathered knowledge that the money/account is held in the UK they tried again - but now the bank is asking for a 6-digit code/ banking number which I have no idea where that would be located. Some googling brought me to an ACH routing number but bunq apparently doesn't offer that yet - so I don't know what to do or if it's acutally even possible to receive usd payments?!
I've contacted bunq directly but thought there might be some others out there with the same issue or knowledge of such things :)

    @Falko-Golden-Penguin#259325
    Hi 🖐,
    if you open the USD account screen and tap on the IBAN you get additional information (bank code, Routing number, IBAN and BI/SWIFT). Those are all the info needed for a transfer.

    I have a different suggestion though.. if you need an easy US transfer with out conversion at payer side.
    I use Wise. You can get a fully fledged US bank account... based out of New York with all the info to receive payments, even the US corresponding to instant payments (kind of instant) called ACH.

    Once you get the payment into Wise, you can decide what to do and to which currency convert it and transfer to your bunq account. I think it is best if you need to transfer and convert from US... USD to EUR... the fees are way lower that SWIFT and the conversion rates are great.

    Speed of execution is super. I use it for sales of stock from e-Trade and I disburse stock sales using this method.

    Wise is also partnering with bunq (mostly for outgoing non EUR payments) and works great for me. You can also review the costs of the whole transaction E2E, compare with other services from other financial institution and decide to go for it or not.

    I hope this helps 🙏
    Regards
    GG

      @Falko-Golden-Penguin#259325 Just to give some more explanation: with the USD account it's an either / or thing. You either use the bank account # and routing number and do a domestic ACH transfer, or you use the IBAN and do a SWIFT transfer. If you supply both numbers to the other bank, they will definitely be very confused, because they don't fit together. They are for completely different payment networks.

      If you have a client in the US, the best thing to do is just to tell them to do a normal ACH transfer. And then you give them your account # and your routing code. Do not give them the GB IBAN. They don't need it, and if they had it they would get confused.

      If you have an international client from outside the US that wants to send you money in US Dollars, then they wouldn't be able to do an ACH transfer, as that is a domestic payment network in the US. Only in this case it makes sense for you to tell them to do a SWIFT transfer and give them your IBAN.

      Does that make it clearer?

        @Jakob-Y#259344
        Hi 🖐,
        just a clarification Jakob.
        If the payment is done via ACH there are no SWIFT costs, just the ACH costs and the amount will be available in my bunq USD account ... correct?
        Then I can convert form USD to EUR to one of my EUR accounts... and there would not be any SWIFT charge ... correct?
        Sorry for dumb question ... this way the SWIFT costs are completely worked around.. correct?
        Thank you 🙏
        GG

          @Gianguig#259347 If the payment is done via ACH there are no SWIFT costs, just the ACH costs and the amount will be available in my bunq USD account ... correct?

          That would be correct, yes. That's the great thing about having ACH details available.

          Then I can convert form USD to EUR to one of my EUR accounts... and there would not be any SWIFT charge ... correct?

          Indeed, no charges for SWIFT. Only the usual 0.5% network fee when exchanging to another currency. But if you have expenditures in USD (for example, online subscriptions) then you might want to opt for not exchanging all of your USD and spending it directly with your card. That way you save even more.

          Sorry for dumb question ... this way the SWIFT costs are completely worked around.. correct?

          Not a dumb question at all. But yes you're correct, this way you don't pay any SWIFT costs. That's why I was so excited for bunq finally giving us ACH banking details for the USD account.

          Appreciate your posts here always! Have a nice day.

            @Jakob-Y#259348
            GREAT 👍,
            I will definitely try it out next US stocks sales 🤩

            @Falko-Golden-Penguin#259325 ,
            the Wise work around mentioned earlier will be probably not needed any more .. I believe the 0.5% network fee applied from bunq when converting to EUR .. if you need EUR ... is lower than what Wise would charge as their fee which are lower anyway than SWIFT.

            Cheers 🌈
            GG

              @Gianguig#259352 I'm not completely sure but I think Wise might still be a little bit cheaper. Because they do not charge anything for receiving ACH transfers, and if you exchange USD to EUR inside your Wise account, then that's 0.47% + 0.29 USD fee compared to 0.5% at bunq. Wise charges 0.28 EUR to get the money out of Wise to bunq, but that's not really an apples to apples comparison (because you could also pay directly with the money through their card) and even then that's just a small fixed fee.

              That being said, the difference is now miniscule. And if you're already a bunqer, then getting the money directly into bunq is just more convenient. Which is why I now hardly use Wise for USD anymore. For other currencies I still need it. Hope that bunq can get more domestic banking outgoing and incoming for more currencies and countries soon :)

                @Jakob-Y#259359 Agree,
                the difference is very minimal... I think Wise updated their priceless though... last US ACH payment I received at the beginning of August, they charged 4.14 USD .. so the difference might be noticeable depending on the total amount transferred.

                I think the bunq way is leaner with less hops. Speed of execution will be the same but with Wise you need to log into 2 separate applications.. so... bung wins in this scenario.. at least for me .. I do really appreciate the easy and time saving part if costs are ~ the same.
                Thank you a lot 🙏

                  Thank you, you two! That helped immensely!

                    @Gianguig#259361 I couldn‘t resist to look this up. Apparently receiving ACH transfers at Wise is free, but receiving wire transfers costs 4.14 USD — with bunq you cannot receive wire transfers I think, only ACH.

                      @Jakob-Y#259395
                      Ohh.. very welcome... I re checked from e-Trade side ... and actually e-trade/Chase do not execute ACH for disbursement but only Wire Transfers... go figure... US system is soo not 2020.. they are really stuck in the 80's.. I still need to get checks in the mail sometimes 🤩
                      Thank you for checking.
                      Regards
                      GG

                        Hey, yeah so that is apparently another problem - they don’t for some reason want to do an ACH transfer but a wire transfer and are now asking for an ABA number - guess i‘ll have to get a Wise account after all 🥲

                          @Gianguig#259404 forgot to reply to you - see above 👆

                            3 months later

                            @Jakob-Y#259344 I want to receive money via a ACH transfer. I have created a USD account in the bunq app but I do not see where the account number is? I only see Routing number, UK sort number, IBAN, BIC. Please let me know where to get the bank account # for ACH ?
                            Most appreciated.

                              2 months later

                              @Paul-Olive-Falcon-1310160654#271681 Hey Paul, I know it's been 3 months but just in case you didn't figure it out, the account number is called "Bank Code" in your USD account details. I'm not sure why it's called this, but combining this with the routing number works for me to receive ACH transfers from the US

                                a month later

                                @Tory#273710 just like Paul my USD account details don't seem to show a "Bank Code". Only a "Routing Number", "UK Sort Code", "IBAN" and "BIC". Any idea where I can find this account number so I can receive ACH transfers?

                                  @brw#275186 The labels are incorrect, but the numbers are correct. Just compare the # of digits, as ABA routing numbers in the US have always nine digits, but account numbers can vary.

                                  And be aware that it only works with ACH transfers, not with wire transfers. I've tried it myself and it's cheap and fast :)

                                    @Jakob-Y#275206 thanks for your answer, but I'm still a little confused. Which one of these is the account number? The "Routing Number" I have is 10 digits, the "UK Sort Code" is 9.

                                      @brw#275246 The "Routing Number" I have is 10 digits, the "UK Sort Code" is 9.

                                      The one labelled "sort code" will be the ABA routing number, as it has 9 digits. Then what it labelled as "routing number" for you is actually the bank account number.

                                      Another thing that you can check is look for the routing number (9-digits) online and see if it leads you to the entry for Community Federal Savings Bank in Queens, New York. As far as I know this is the bank used by Currencycloud for these ACH transfers, which is bunq's partner for these local currency accounts.

                                        6 days later

                                        @Jakob-Y#275247 very helpful, thanks! I assume you can understand my confusion here though.
                                        Also sorry for the late replies every time. Haven't figured out how to get notifications for replies.